Activity timeline
Apps opened, sites visited and time spent, grouped by the hour. Tap any block to expand it into the detail behind the summary.
Features
Everything Optic can see,
block and tell you about
Six toolkits in one app. Nothing important is locked behind a bigger plan, and nothing runs on your child's device that they can't see for themselves.
01 — Visibility
Activity monitoring
A readable account of the day, not a surveillance log.
Usage breakdowns
Where the hours actually went, split by category and compared against last week so you can see a trend instead of a number.
Search insights
The topics your child searched for, summarised. Flagged terms surface immediately; ordinary curiosity stays private.
Location check-in
Arrival and departure pings for the places you both agree on — home, school, practice. No continuous tracking, ever.
Device health
Battery, last sync, screen unlocks and whether Optic is still running. You'll know within minutes if a device drops off.
Cross-device view
One timeline stitched from the phone, tablet and laptop, so switching devices doesn't reset the picture.
Activity timeline
1200 × 900
Usage breakdown
1200 × 900
Search insights
1200 × 900
02 — Safety
Alerts that earn the interruption
Your child sees every enforcement as an on-screen popup, and you see what needs a parent in the dashboard.
Smart alerts
Blocked apps and sites, screen time running low or exhausted, and extra-time requests waiting on you — the handful of events that actually need a parent.
Enforce & Remind modes
Not everything needs a hard block. Nudge every few minutes of use, then block after a budget — or remind a set number of times and never block at all.
Rule assistant
Describe a rule in plain English — "remind me about video sites after 6pm" — and approve the exact changes before they apply. Works offline too.
Extra-time requests
Your child can ask for more time with a reason attached. Approve or deny in one tap; approvals land on the device automatically.
Mode schedules
Block school hours, enforce after school, remind in the evening — one rule, different behaviour through the day, switching automatically.
Kid-visible popups
Blocked, warned, reminded, approved — your child always sees why. Nothing happens silently, so rules feel explained rather than imposed.
03 — Balance
Screen-time tools
Rules that hold up on a Tuesday night, when everyone is tired.
Daily budgets
One number for the whole device, or separate budgets per category. Weekdays and weekends get their own settings.
Per-app caps
Forty-five minutes of social, ninety of video, unlimited for the reading app. Caps reset at a time you choose.
Bedtime lock
Devices wind down and lock on a schedule. Calls to favourite contacts keep working, because emergencies don't respect a curfew.
Grace allowance
A daily pool of extra minutes your child can grant themselves — the "five more minutes" jar, refilled every morning, capped by you.
Bonus-time requests
Your child asks for extra time and attaches a reason. You approve or decline from the dashboard — no negotiation required.
Activity timeline
Apps, browser visits, launched programs and file activity, recorded on the device and visible per child in the dashboard.
04 — Boundaries
App & web blocking
Explicit apps and sites you name, enforced in Block, Enforce or Remind mode — then adjust anything you disagree with.
Block, Enforce, Remind
Hard block, nudge-then-block after a use budget, or reminders only. Per rule, per time of day — school hours can differ from evenings.
Mode schedules
One rule, different behaviour through the day. The first matching time window wins; anything uncovered falls back to the rule's default mode.
Allow & block lists
The exceptions that make a filter usable — the one game that's fine, the one site that isn't. Every entry editable, removable, schedulable.
DNS-over-HTTPS lockdown
Browsers' built-in "Secure DNS" would silently bypass website blocking, so the installer switches it off and locks it by policy.
PIN-gated everything
Seeing the lists, changing a rule, removing Optic — every privileged step needs the parent PIN plus a Windows administrator.
Kid-visible enforcement
Blocked pages explain themselves instead of failing silently, and nudges arrive as popups with the choice spelled out.
05 — Control
The parent dashboard
One account in your browser — the same rules, activity and requests wherever you open it.
One screen per device
Each paired computer keeps its own rules, activity and requests. Switch between them with a tap.
Rule assistant
Describe rules in plain English and approve the exact changes before they apply — backed by a built-in parser that works offline.
Decide from anywhere
Approve extra time, resolve unblock requests, or change a rule from wherever you are — the device picks it up on its next check-in.
Activity & retention
Recent activity per device, kept for exactly the retention window you set — on the device and on the dashboard alike.
Pairing codes
A six-digit code links a child's PC to your account in thirty seconds. Codes expire, are single-use, and can be revoked by unpairing.
Honest limits
No silent monitoring: every enforcement reaches the child as a popup, and the dashboard shows the same policy the device enforces.
06 — Trust
Privacy by design
The part we argued about the longest, and the reason we built Optic in the first place.
Kid-visible mode
Your child opens Optic and sees exactly what is shared with you. There is no hidden mode and no invisible install.
On-device processing
Content classification happens on the device. Raw browsing and message content never reaches our servers.
Encrypted end to end
Everything in transit and at rest is encrypted. Only the parents on the account can decrypt a child's activity.
No message reading
We show you signals and flags, never a transcript. A teenager who can't have a private conversation stops talking to anyone.
No ads, no resale
We don't run ads and we don't sell data. Paid plans and school licences are the entire business model.
Delete means delete
Remove a device or close your account and the history is gone within thirty days, including from backups.
Platform support
What works where
Optic is a Windows application. There is exactly one platform, so here is exactly what it does — no asterisks.
| Capability | Windows |
|---|---|
| Activity timeline | Full |
| Screen-time limits | Yes |
| App & website blocking | Yes |
| Enforce & Remind modes | Yes |
| Web filtering | Yes |
| Extra-time requests | Yes |
| Rule assistant | Yes |
| Install approvals | No |
| Location check-in | No |
| Per-app caps | No |
Feature walkthrough — hero screenshot
2000 × 1125 · PNG or WebP
Try the whole feature set free.
Every feature above is in the free tier for up to three devices. No trial timer, no card, no upsell nagging in the dashboard.
Download Optic Free for families · Windows 10 & 11